COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Con Job - Joyce and I were approached the other day at Walmarts by a woman claiming to be stranded here.  She had, according to her story, deposited her payroll check from Denny's at the Walmart customer service desk and had the total, $579.53 she said, giving the exact amount as if to make it seem more plausible, put on a Walmart Visa credit card.  Then as she started to leave to do some shopping, they reminded her that she could not draw on the money for three days.  She and her husband were effectively broke and stranded.  They needed money for gas and for food.  As she talked, she waved a Walmart Visa card back and forth for us to make her story more believable.

We listened, asked some questions.  She had suspiciously ready answers for each of our questions, e.g., calling social services, contacting parents at home, etc.  Then we  refused her.  It was just too slick ... and too suspicious.  At that point she said thank you and quickly disappeared, probably to try and find a more willing or gullible sucker.


Walmart cashes payroll checks for $3.  It says so on the giant sign behind the customer service counter.  I later talked with a store assistant manager and told him of the incident.  He said we did the right thing.  There was no company policy about holding money from a check for three days.  It was a con job pure and simple.  Be forewarned.

Sandhill Cranes - The sandhill cranes are starting to pair up.  It's fun to watch their mating dance.  They crane their heads back, jump in the air and flap their wings.  It must be a turn-on for them.  I did a dance something like that awhile back when I hit my thumb with a hammer, but I don't remember Joyce being turned on by it.  I also turned the air around me blue -- which is probably not a sexual turn-on for women.

I'm not sure why the cranes are "getting it on" at this time of year.  Their chicks are not born until late February or early March.  I'm sure it doesn't take that long for their eggs to hatch.  But to tell the truth, I know very little about the procreation habits of sandhill cranes.  I just know it is interesting to watch them this time of year.

They are all over the resort and golf course.  They come into your yard as long as you leave them to their poking for whatever they are seeking under the ground.  The golf course grounds keeper just loves them, as you can imagine, as they leave a sizable hole every time they poke and prod for whatever morsel they seek.  Fortunately, through the use of pesticides, I suspect, they stay away from the greens.

Christmas Boycott - I notice that once again a great many, actually all that I've seen, merchants are posting signs in their windows and banners outside proclaiming "HAPPY HOLIDAYS."  Christians, of course, resent this.  They believe the signs and banners should say MERRY CHRISTMAS, this being the season in celebration of the birth of Christ.  Christ, they believe, belongs in Christmas.  One person I know goes so far as to complain if you refer in writing to Christmas as Xmas.

Merchants, of course, hope to appeal to a broader audience than just Christians, so they try to make their signs and banners a little more generic.  Good Christians want no part of that, as you can imagine.  Generic is an anathema to them every much bit much as the evil word "secular."  Would you like to see a store sign that said HAPPY SECULAR SEASON?  Of course not.

Still, the merchant who needs big sales this time of year to show a profit for the year is caught between acknowledging the origin and namesake of the Christmas season and not wanting to turn away non-Christians, of which there are many -- possibly more than their are Christian shoppers.

Nevertheless, a good old-fashioned boycott of those stores refusing to show proper respect for the King of kings might get their attention and compel them to change their signs and banners.  So, why not encourage all good Christians to simply refuse to shop at stores showing a non-religious, secular sign this Christmas?  If they all stayed away, refused to shop at such stores, merchants would surely notice and make appropriate changes.

Would it work?  You know it would not.  For, if they are nothing else, Christians are flexible.  They have shown over the decades a willingness and ability to stretch and bend any rule of behavior or religious admonition that significantly interfered with their lives.  They know full well that most such rules from the church are either man made or simply some man's interpretation of the scriptures and subject to change as society demands or world conditions dictate.  Thus opening the way for the popular protestant belief that each individual is answerable only to God and can interpret the bible himself/herself without the benefit of clergy -- and in a manner appropriate for the moment.

Give up shopping at this time of year for presents?  Don't be absurd!

Christmas Presents - Speaking of Christmas, Joyce today ordered my Christmas present: a new "Toshiba Black 14" Satellite M505D-S4970 Laptop PC with AMD Turion II M500 Dual-Core Processor & Windows 7 Home Premium."  Boy, will I be surprised on Christmas morning.

In return, I got her two pair of sneakers and have ordered for her a brand new, 16.75 inch toilet stool.  Wrapping it will likely be a bit difficult, but I know she will be surprised.